tion now referred to the Senate.1 Jay made a written report on the 27th of July that in his judgment the United States ought to ratify the Convention; and the Senate gave its unanimous consent. The Statute to carry the Convention into effect was passed the 14th of April, 1792.4 Three articles in the treaties with France concluded before the Constitution became the cause of difference between the two Powers: 1. Article XI of the Treaty of Alliance, by which the United States, for a reciprocal consideration, agreed to guarantee to the King of France his possessions in America, as well present as those which might be acquired by the Treaty of Peace. 2. Article XVII of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, providing that each party might take into the ports of the other its prizes in time of war, and that they should be permitted to depart without molestation; and that neither should give shelter or refuge to vessels which had made prizes of the other unless forced in by stress of weather, in which case they should be required to depart as soon as possible. 3. Article XXII of the same Treaty, that foreign privateers, the enemies of one party, should not be allowed in the ports of the other to fit their ships or to exchange or sell their captures, or to purchase provisions except in sufficient quantities to take them to the next port of their own State. Jefferson, who was the Minister of the United States at the Court of Versailles when the Constitution went into operation, was appointed Secretary of State by President Washington on the 26th of September, 1789. He accepted the appointment and presented Short to Neckar as chargé d'affaires of the United States." Gouverneur Morris, of New York, who had been in Europe from the dawn of the French revolution, and had been in regular friendly correspondence with Washington," was appointed Minister to France on the 12th of January, 1792. At the time of the appointment Washington wrote him a friendly and admonitory letter: "The official communications from the Secretary of State accompanying this letter will convey to you the evidence of my nomination and appointment of you to be Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at the Court of 1 Annals 1st Sess. 1st Cong., 52. 2 Ib., 54. 8 Ib. 41 St. at L., 254. 53 Jefferson's Works, 119. France; and my assurance that both were made with all my heart will, I am persuaded, satisfy you as to that fact. I wish I could add that the advice and consent flowed from a similar source. * * * Not to go further into detail I will place the ideas of your political adversaries in the light in which their arguments have presented them to me, namely, that the promptitude with which your lively and brilliant imagination is displayed allows too little time for deliberation and correction, and is the primary cause of those sallies which too often offend, and of that ridicule of character which begets enmity not easy to be forgotten, but which might easily be avoided if it was under the control of more caution and prudence. In a word, that it is indispensably necessary that more circumspection should be observed by our representatives abroad than they conceive you are inclined to adopt. In this statement you have the pros and cons. By reciting them I give you a proof of my friendship if I give you none of my policy or judgment." Morris entered upon the duties of his office with these wise cautions in his hand, but he did not succeed in gaining the good-will of a succession of governments with which he had little sympathy:2 for he writes Jefferson on the 13th of February, 1793: "Some of the leaders here who are in the diplomatic committee hate me cordially, though it would puzzle them to say why." When Morris was appointed Minister, the commercial relations between the two countries were satisfactory to neither. Exceptional favors to the commerce of the United States, granted by royal decree in 1787 and 1788, had been withdrawn, and a jealousy was expressed in France in consequence of the Act of Congress putting British and French commerce on the same basis in American ports." No exceptional advantages had come to France from the war of the revolution, and American commerce had reverted to its old British channels. Jefferson greatly desired to conclude a convention with France which should restore the favors which American commerce had lost, and bring the two countries into closer connection. On the 10th of March, 1792, he instructs Morris: "We had expected, ere this, that in consequence of the recommendation of their predecessors, some overtures would have been made to us on the subject of a Treaty of commerce. Perhaps they expect that we should declare our readiness to meet on the ground of Treaty. If they do, we have no hesitation to declare it." Again, on the 28th of April, he writes: "It will be impossible to defer longer than the next session of Congress some counter regulations for the protection of our navigation and commerce. I must entreat you, therefore, to avail yourself of every occasion of friendly remonstrance on this subject. If they wish an equal and cordial treaty with us, we are ready to enter into it. We would wish that this could be the scene of negotiation." Again, on the 16th of June, he writes: "That treaty may be long on the anvil; in the mean time we cannot consent to the late innovations without taking measures to do justice to our own navigation." The great revolution of the 10th of August, and the imprisonment of the King, were duly reported by Morris; and Jefferson replied on the 7th of November: "It accords with our principles to acknowledge any government to be rightful which is formed by the will of the nation substantially declared. There are some matters which I conceive might be transacted with a government de facto; such, for instance, as the reforming the unfriendly restrictions on our commerce and navigation."" * To these instructions, Morris answered on the 13th of February, 1793, three weeks after the execution of the King, and a fortnight after the declaration of war against England: "You had * instructed me to endeavor to transfer the negotiation for a new treaty to America, and if the revolution of the 10th of August had not taken place, * I should, perhaps, have obtained what you wished. * The thing you wished for is done, and you can treat in America if you please." In the same dispatch, Morris spoke of the "sending out of M. Genet, without mentioning to me a syllable either of his mission or his errand," and said that "the pompousness of this embassy could not but excite the attention of England.” On the 7th of March, Morris wrote to Jefferson that "Genet took out with him three hundred blank commissions, which he is to distribute to such as will fit out cruisers in our ports to prey on the 13 Jefferson's Works, 338-9. 2 Ib., 356. 3 Ib., 449. 53 Jefferson's Works, 489. 7 Ib. 41 F. R. F., 333. British commerce," and that he had already mentioned the fact to Pinckney, and had desired him to transmit it.1 The new condition of affairs caused by the war induced the President to submit a series of questions to the members of his cabinet for their consideration and reply. It would seem from a passage of Mr. Jefferson's Ana that the second of these questions-"Shall a Minister from France be received?" was suggested by the Secretary of State. An account of the meeting of the cabinet at which these questions were discussed will be found in vol. 9 Jefferson's Works, page 142. The first two questions were unanimously answered in the affirmative-that a proclamation for the purpose of preventing citizens of the United States from interfering in the war between France and Great Britain should issue, and that Genet should be received; but by a compromise, the term "neutrality" was omitted from the text of the proclamation.* When Genet landed in Charleston, on the 8th of April, 1793-even when he arrived in Philadelphia-it may be believed that Washington contemplated the probability of closer relations with France, and the possibility of a war with Great Britain. The relations with the latter Power were in a critical condition. British garrisons were occupying commanding positions on our lake frontiers, within the territory of the United States, in violation of the Treaty of 1783; and an Indian quarrel was on the President's hands, fomented, as he thought, by British intrigue." The policy which Washington favored, denied France nothing that she could justly demand under the Treaty, except the possible enforcement of the provision of guarantee; and that provision was waived by Genet in his first interview with Jefferson. "We know," he said, "that under present circumstances we have a right to call upon you for the guarantee of our islands. But we do not desire it." On the other hand, it offered to Great Britain neutrality only, without a right of asylum for prizes, this being conferred exclusively by Treaty upon France; and it demanded the relinquishment of the Forts on the lakes and the abandonment of impressment. 1 F. R. F., 354. 210 Washington's Works, 337, 533. 89 Jefferson's Works, 140. 43 Jefferson's Works, 591. 10 Washington's Works, 239. See also Morris's opinion, 1 F. R. F., 412, and Randolph's, Ib., 678. 63 Jefferson's Works, 563. It is not likely that the purposes of Genet's mission were fully comprehended by the American Government. By a Treaty in 1762 (first made public in 1836),1 France ceded Louisiana to Spain. Genet was instructed to sound the disposition of the inhabitants of Louisiana towards the French Republic, and to omit no opportunity to profit by it should circumstances seem favorable. He was also to direct particular attention to the designs of the Americans upon the Mississippi.2 In one of his letters Genet says of himself, "I have been seven years a head of the bureau at Versailles, under the direction of Vergennes; I have passed one year at London, two at Vienna, one at Berlin, and five in Russia." His dealings with the United States showed that he had gathered little wisdom from such varied experience. Before he left Charleston, which at that time had few regular means of communication with Philadelphia, he had armed and commissioned several vessels, and these vessels, dispatched to sea, had made many prizes. On his arrival at Philadelphia, Jefferson met him with complaints; but he justified his course at Charleston and denounced an interference with it as a "State Inquisition"; and, admitting what was complained of, he contended that he had not exceeded the rights conferred upon his country by the Treaty of 1778. The Secretary of State disputed his reasoning; upon which he retorted: "I wish, Sir, that the Federal Government should observe, as far as in their power, the public engagements contracted by both nations; and that by this generous and prudent conduct, they will give at least to the world the example of a true neutrality, which does not consist in the cowardly abandonment of their friends, in the moment when danger menaces them, but in adhering strictly, if they can do no better, to the obligations they have contracted with them." He continued to claim and exercise the right of using the ports of the United States as a base for warlike operations, and, as the discussions went on, his expressions became stronger, and more contemptuous toward the President and the Government of the United States. His instructions contemplated a political alliance between the two republics. This was never proposed. He did propose, however, the re-arrangement of the debt due to France on the basis of the payment 16 Garden, Traités de Paix, 266. 28 Garden, Traités de Paix, 40-41. 31 F. R. F., 183. 5 Ib. 61 F. R. F., 151. 4 Ib., 150. |